Streisand upstaged by Katzenberg

Barbra Streisand was the guest of honour at the annual Women in Entertainment breakfast on Wednesday, but it was Hollywood publicist Nanci Ryder and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg (right) who moved the audience most.

Ryder, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease last year, appeared with Katzenberg at the industry event. Because she can no longer speak, he read a statement she had written, and as he did, Ryder wailed and dabbed her eyes with Kleenex. By the time he finished the statement, he was crying, too, as were most of the guests at Milk Studios, where the breakfast was held.

“I aspire to be half the person you are,” Katzenberg told Ryder through tears.

In her statement, Ryder urged the entertainment powerhouses at the Hollywood Reporter’s annual Power 100 breakfast to work together to create gender equity in the industry.

“I wish my disease were as easy to fix as this,” she wrote.

The audience was cried out by the time Streisand took the stage to accept the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, saying : “Gender discrimination drives me crazy. Women are still treated as second-class citizens in the workplace and equal representation in Congress.”

Lena Dunham, Sean Penn, Robert Redford and Melinda Gates also spoke at the breakfast event. —AP